


In The Morning

by CaitlynRose



Category: A Star is Born (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Everybody Lives, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaitlynRose/pseuds/CaitlynRose
Summary: Ally and Jackson. Pure fluff.





	In The Morning

Somehow, it feels like before Ally even fully opens her eyes, she’s sensed that something’s different. Normally, she wakes up in pitch darkness, and normally, it’s very much not of her own volition.

This morning, though, she’s woken naturally, daylight beckoning through the curtains, and she stretches out her arms and legs out a little, revelling in the feeling of perfect comfort and warmth. It actually takes her a minute to register the full significance of this situation. When she does, her mouth widens, and she burrows into her pillow giddily, an exultant exhale escaping her lips. She almost wants to wake Jackson just to tell him, but she soon thinks better of that idea, on humanitarian grounds.

As it happens, though, she doesn’t have to wait long. She’s just drifting off again into a blissful little catnap when she feels her husband stir on the other side of the bed, and she shimmies over beside him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder blade. She loves his shoulder blades.

“Good morning” she murmurs, and he murmurs something indistinct in return.

“Honey,” she adds then, when he says nothing further, “look around you.”

“Huh?” Jack says, and when he shifts to face her, there’s a frown on his forehead. “What's up?” he continues, glancing around a little as directed.

And Ally can’t help the smile that rises to her lips. She could never, ever have imagined it back when she’d only seen him on big stages and on magazine covers, but sometimes, when he’s just woken up, Jackson Maine is confused in a way that’s pretty goddamn adorable. “It’s the morning,” she replies slowly. “Is there a toddler in this bed?”

Jack’s eyes dart around again, and this time, a slow grin is forming on his face. “There is _not_ a toddler in this bed!” he confirms triumphantly, and Ally’s sure her expression mirrors his. Like idiots, the two of them laugh out loud, in some blessed combination of sheer relief and delight and disbelief.

They’ve had, to put it mildly, a treacherous three weeks with Connor.

That the problem was ultimately of their own creation has of course only made the whole thing worse.

It all began when one night - months ago now - their two-year-old had arrived into their bedroom at 3am. There hadn’t, so far as they could tell, been anything whatsoever wrong with him - he wasn’t hungry or wet or frightened or sick, or any of the other things that they routinely worried about their babies being. He was just, after over a year of sleeping happily through the night in his own bed, suddenly up for some company.

And, well.

They were tired.

He was cuddly.

It was just easier.

They _brought him into bed with them._

This was not a mistake they made once, either. No. It was a mistake they repeated the next night, and the night after that, until somehow or other, weeks and weeks had passed and they had ended up with a nightly visitor.

He was regular as clockwork, they had to say that for the kid. His particular strategies, on the other hand, tended to demonstrate a little more variance. Some nights, he would tug on mama’s hair, for example; others, he’d hook his finger into daddy’s nostril. One way or another, though, Connor Maine always managed to make his presence very much felt until he was safely ensconced in what he’d clearly come to see as his rightful spot in the middle of his parents’ kingsize bed.

Obviously, it wasn’t ideal. Ally really didn’t think she Jack were much different from most people insofar as when they were in bed, they pretty much wanted to be sleeping or to be having sex, and much less of both was typically available to them with their toddler son in the mix. So, yeah - it was fair to say that actually, the whole thing was _far_ from ideal.

At some point or other, though, the new regime became normality. At some point, the prospect of what they’d surely have to endure to roll it back came to seem even less appealing than just letting it continue another while longer.

And it sort of wasn’t that bad. Ally could sometimes pull Connor up into bed and soothe him back to sleep without even opening her own eyes. Sometimes, he _didn’t_  proceed to fling his limbs around with abandon throughout the entire remainder of the night. Sometimes, she’d wake up in the morning and see him nestled inside Jack’s arms - her big, strong, sleeping husband and their small, perfect, sleeping boy - and it actually felt kind of incredible.

Thus, she and Jack had contented themselves with a vague sort of agreement that this situation definitely couldn’t continue much longer - they’d definitely need to figure it out once they were less busy, less tired.

Then, because they had two jobs and two children, four months followed in which they were _extremely_ busy and _extremely_ tired.

Ally doesn’t actually know when or if they’d ever have been spurred into action were it not for the news - the absolute shock of a lifetime, to be more specific - that she was ten weeks pregnant.

“We _gotta_ get Connor back in his own bed before this baby comes,” she’d mumbled against Jack’s lips one night when they were lying together, just about ready to go to sleep.

He’d chuckled quietly, kissing her again.

“Out with the old, in with the new, huh?”

“I mean, I guess pretty much!” she’d agreed with a smile. "Seriously. There’s no way there can be four of us in here. Next thing we know, Carrie’ll be in to join the party. Hell, she’ll probably bring Charlie.”

“I mean, yeah, why not?" Jack said dryly. "The more the fuckin’ merrier, right?”

And they’d laughed and kissed and turned off the lights, and in the room across the hall, little did their son know that that would be the last night he'd spend happily sprawled between mama and daddy. 

So began three weeks of turning Connor away, of patiently returning him to his own bed multiple times a night. Three weeks of fat, sad tears that have made Jack and Ally feel like the worst parents to walk the earth. Three weeks of shrill temper tantrums that have seemed to sound out all over the house - that have even, as an extra treat, woken up Caroline a few times, only for the five-year-old to insist she could not possibly go back to sleep without a bowl of Cheerios, or a quick viewing of some nonsense on YouTube, or some other ridiculous thing that they quickly gave her.

It has, in short, been hellish.

That the record Ally and Jack are trying to finish up in the daytime hours has sincerely come to feel like the addendum to their life’s main project is testament to how hellish it has been.

“Just think, some day the record’ll be done, and Connor’ll be back sleeping through the night, and this’ll all just be an anecdote we can wheel out on _The_ fuckin’ _View_ or something,” Jack had joked to her a few nights ago when she’d crawled back in bed, having once again returned Connor to his room for what she’d guessed would be a fifteen minute stay, maximum.

And, of course, it wasn’t even true, because neither of them ever talked about the kids on stuff like that. But still Ally had found herself laughing along until suddenly, completely without warning, she was crying. Not from any particular upset but just, it felt like, from sheer exhaustion.

In seconds, Jack had her gathered into his chest, holding her close. “Hey,” he’d murmured, his hand stroking down the crown of her head. “It’s alright. You’re okay.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just so tired,” she’d said, her voice breaking.

"I know you are. Go to sleep. If he comes in again, I’ll take him back.”

She’d managed a shake of her head. “That’s not fair. You’re exhausted too. We’re supposed to take it in turns.”

Jack just kissed her forehead, working one of his hands in between them until his knuckles were brushing against her stomach. “We _are_ taking it in turns. I’m taking care of number 2 and you’re taking care of number 3. Okay?”

“Okay,” she’d agreed and - in a manner that might have struck her as embarrassingly pathetic had this man not already seen her in pretty much every possible state a person could be in - she’d clung to him and cried a little more, just to get it all out.

Not even a week later and now, as if by some miracle, here they are. One full night with absolutely not a peep from the youngest Mr Maine.

“I think we broke him, Ally,” Jack says, and he doesn’t sound one bit sad about that fact.

“Fucking thank _god_ ,” she replies fervently. “Do you really think so? You don’t think he’ll just be right back in tonight?”

Jack shakes his head. “I think we just needed to break the pattern, you know?”

And why Jackson would have any more expertise than her in this area, Ally really doesn’t know. But he says it with such conviction that, at least for now, she’s inclined to believe him.

They have video monitors of the kids on their nightstands, and she goes to switch them on, watching for minute as her son and daughter both sleep peacefully.

“This is so weird,” she says then, turning back around to her husband. “It’s like 8:30, why are neither of ‘em up yet?”

“Don’t even ask, you’ll jinx it,” he replies, and she laughs.

Then, wriggling around a little, she groans dramatically. “God. Do you remember when mornings were for sleeping late and…like, ordering food and making love?”

Jack nods, and it occurs to Ally that she’d never ever have used that phrase - _making love_ \- before him. Now, even when she's on her knees, even when he's fucking her hard and fast against the tiles in the shower, it sort of feels like the most accurate one. 

“D’you miss it?” she prods.

“Hell yeah,” he says frankly. “But..” - he nods towards the baby monitors -"I wouldn’t switch those two crazies for it.”

Ally smiles then. She feels that way too.

“Soon to be three, huh?” she says, and she rolls onto her back, propping herself up on her pillows a little more. Pulling up her t-shirt, she looks down to inspect her stomach.

Back when they were expecting Caroline, Ally would say that both she and Jack thought about the pregnancy a good portion of any given day. She’d vomit in the mornings and feel sorry for herself well into the afternoon, and Jack would drive himself crazy with worry about her. Every night before they went to bed, they looked at the bump from all angles, trying to spot any signs of change. The first time she’d had even a passing inclination for some ice cream at midnight, he was out the door to the 7-11 faster than she could say “craving,” and Ally knew they were both secretly thrilled to be living out this particular cliché.

Things are different now, with two other kids in the picture. Sometimes Ally wakes up, throws up, and then just brushes her teeth and gets Caroline ready for pre-school.

It’s not that she and Jack aren’t every bit as excited about this newest addition as they’ve been in the past - now that the initial shock of it has worn off (she's pretty sure they each spent a good 48 hours punch-drunk), they absolutely are. But, there just seems to be a lot less time in the day to focus on it.

To have this unexpected morning, just her and him and the next love of their lives, feels to Ally like such a treat.

“She’s getting bigger in there, it looks like,” she observes.

And then, a second later. “Dammit, you got me calling it a girl now.”

Jack just grins. He thinks it’s a girl. And, he’s two for two so far.

Scooting down the bed, he puts his hand on her waist, leaning in to press a kiss, then another, to the gentle curve of her stomach.

“How do you feel, do you feel sick?” he asks, looking up at her, and Ally smiles warmly, feeling such a rush of affection for him.

“I feel great,” she says, reaching a hand down to play with his hair.

He smiles then too, lowering his head a little to kiss just above the drawstring of her shorts, letting his tongue swirl against the exposed skin.

“Why? Do you have plans for me?” she asks coyly.

“Fuckin’ right I do,” he shoots back throatily, both his hands grabbing at either side of her hips, pulling her shorts down her legs in one go.

Ally giggles. This really is the best morning she’s had in a while.


End file.
